"Pillars of Hope" is a tongue-in-cheek name for steel starter bars, also known as starter rods or rebar extensions, that protrude from the roofs of houses after construction. Leaving starter bars sticking out is a pragmatic approach, saving time and money when adding the next floor, as the structure is already partially prepared for the expansion. The "hope" in the name reflects the anticipation and optimism of adding to their homes in the future when the family grows or their financial situation improves.

Growing up in the UK, I never encountered the practice of leaving exposed starter bars on houses. However, while travelling through Central America and Asia, I was surprised to see these exposed rods in many towns and cities. At first, I couldn't understand why so many buildings seemed unfinished, making the skyline somewhat messy. Only when someone explained their purpose to me did it make complete sense.

Steel bars in concrete combine the tensile strength of steel with the compressive strength of concrete, creating a remarkably effective and widely used building method. The starter bars embedded in and protruding from the existing structure provide a strong and stable connection between a new addition and the existing building. The bars transfer loads and anchor the two together.

Pillars of Hope are a conspicuous example of futureproofing. Other examples in buildings are electrics or plumbing, where you might leave capped-off pipes or electrical connection points in anticipation of future work. Laptops and desktop computers with empty expansion slots also use this approach, as does a first edition of software that includes an update manager.

In software and agile development, I like the sentiment from the book Rework: "A kick-ass half is better than a half-assed whole." Have no parts of your product not yet working or "under construction" that are visible to users. Don't leave any visible "starter bars" sticking out of your product. And try not to solve problems that you don't yet have. While it might seem worth adding something now to make a future feature easier to build, it's a tricky balance. So often, you choose to do something else in the future instead and are left with some software pillars of hope sprinkled throughout your code—technical debt you may have to pay off later.

While my first reaction to steel rods sticking out of houses seemingly willy-nilly was that it was chaotic and messy, when I think about them as Pillars of Hope I now find it kind of beautiful—looking out over a skyline and seeing the aspirations and future development of families, homes and a city sketched out on the rooftops.

Edit: Several people told me that leaving starter bars sticking out of a roof makes the building 'unfinished' and not liable to tax on the work. While this is repeated in many places, I'm not 100% sure of the truth. If you have experience with it, please get in touch!

Pillars of hope

A word spectrum highlights different aspects of a concept from one extreme to another. By arranging words on a spectrum, we can see their subtle differences and nuances.

For example, a word spectrum of happiness might range from "Miserable" on one side to "Ecstatic" on the other, passing through "Gloomy", "Content", and "Happy" along the way.

Or a word spectrum of tiredness might be: Asleep - Drowsy - Groggy - Awake - Alert - Energised

It's not a science, and there's a fair amount of latitude for people to place different words in different positions. Looking at many spectrums, it strikes me that some writers excel at selecting specific and perhaps more intriguing words such as "scrumptious" or "mouth-watering" over the more common "delicious." Roald Dahl often had his characters "guzzle" instead of "eat hungrily," for example.

I became curious about word spectrums when I realised that my understanding of the spectrum of approval was different from that of many of my American friends. In British English, "quite" is often used to mean "a bit less than," but in the U.S., I found it was more commonly used to mean "a lot" or "very."

So, my British English word spectrum of approval would be:

While the word spectrum of approval for many of my U.S. friends might be:

It left me confused several times before I figured it out.

For other variations in interpretation, such as where you might put "awesome", there's an excellent table as a Guide for U.S. students interpreting feedback from faculty trained in the U.K. (and vice versa).

At times, it really matters what someone means with a descriptive word. In the "intelligence" trade "words of estimative probability" relate to specific odds meant by certain terms. For instance, if an attack is "highly likely," just how likely is it? If something is "almost certainly an airfield," how certain is that? Clearly, the choice and interpretation of these terms can be very significant. For a fascinating insight on this, see CIA analyst Sherman Kent's previously classified report Words of Estimative Probability (pdf). Other research has studied individual differences in people's perceptions of probability—and created some fun graphics showing the results.

Estimative probability is also critical in medicine. If exact numbers aren't shared, how frequent is a side effect that occurs "rarely"? Specific guides have been created listing associated probabilities for terms such as "likely", "frequent", "occasional" and "rare".

A reader also shared with me a classic chocolate advert of Fry's five boys, with the face of a boy moving from: desperation, pacification, expectation, acclamation and the realisation "it's Fry's".

More word spectrums, including those illustrated here:

Size: tiny - small - medium - large - huge - gigantic

Frequency: never - rarely - occasionally - sometimes - often - always

Talk volume: whisper - murmur - talk - shout - yell - scream

Intelligence: stupid - dim - average - bright - brilliant - genius

Tastiness: disgusting - bland - tasty - delicious

Word spectrum

I love this concept of the study of social distance, or how humans use space. Distinct from ergonomics, which is more about how people fit into their environment, proxemics focuses on the social aspect of space. For example: At what distance are you intimate? Where does your personal space end? How far away should you be for a good conversation? Why are the big circular wedding and conference tables so bad? How close should desks be in an office to encourage collaboration without feeling jammed together?

Dev Patnaik at Jump Associates used to give the fine example of how you will whisper politely and with awe in the vaulted ceilings of a cathedral, while the confessional box — for people to share their deepest secrets — is low and close. An olde English pub that you stoop to enter under the low ceiling immediately feels friendly and intimate, whereas you’ll struggle to have a deep conversation on entering a warehouse.

Proxemics was coined by the cultural anthropologist Edward Hall. His book The Hidden Dimension has the details.

Proxemics

Change of large complex things like people, countries, religions or cultures tends to happen slowly. And because the change is small we might think they’re not changing at all. Our instinct may be that they can’t in fact change because of their innate characteristics. But the destiny instinct misleads us.

Small change adds up to big changes over enough time. And while things may not seem to change in a week or a month or a year, when you look back over decades huge change can happen. Changes in poverty, live expectancy, economies, women’s rights, or attitudes to homosexuality — things that may have seemed at one time that they were hardly changing at all —  have all transformed when we look back over sufficient time. Change that may not have seemed like it was adding up to much is still change.

Read more from the Roslings: Culture, nations and religions are not rocks — they’re always changing.

And, at a time of the year perfect for reflection, here are 4 ways to control our destiny instinct from Gapminder:

Keep track of gradual improvements. A small change every year can translate to a huge change over decades.

Update your knowledge. Some knowledge goes out of date quickly. Technology, countries, societies, cultures, and religions are constantly changing.

Talk to Grandpa. If you want to be reminded of how values have changed, think about your grandparents’ values and how they differ from yours.

Collect examples of cultural change. Challenge the idea that today’s culture must also have been yesterday’s, and will also be tomorrow’s.

The Destiny Instinct

I love this concept from Stewart Brand, that different aspects of the world change at different speeds. So, fashion and art changes and cycles faster than commerce which is faster than infrastructure, and in turn governance, culture and finally Nature. The outer layers tend to innovate faster and so pull along, or be stabilised by, the lower, slower layers. At the boundaries you get constructive turbulence, say between Uber and governance, or how the growth in video streaming requires Internet infrastructure to come along with it. I’m sure you can find counter examples, but as a framework for thinking about big complex things I find it quite handy.

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Category: culture